There are many people who are bothered with a nasal blockage which hinders their breathing, especially at night when they are attempting to sleep. Means are sought by people so afflicted to either promote comfortable mouth breathing by simply avoiding the nasal function with such apparatus as disclosed in Nelson U.S. Pat. No. 4,170,230 or by treating the symptoms of the nasal congestion with nasal sprays, tube inhalators, other various ethical or proprietary drugs in the form of pills, capsules, or liquids, and with mechanical atomizers or steam vaporizers. Except for the mechanical atomizers and steam vaporizers, the above-mentioned methods of treating the symptoms of nasal congestion are not entirely satisfactory because these treatments must be intermittently administered in timed dosages with such periodic administration of these medications evidencing the great defect of requiring both a special mental effort and a repetitive physical act on the part of the user of these medicines and methods. Furthermore, experience has shown that the chemically active ingredients of such periodic dosage medications are necessarily strong acting upon first administration and may result in such irritating side effects upon the user as stomachache, sore nasal and throat membranes, and even altered metabolism. Steam vaporizers and mechanical atomizers demand less recurrent physical action or mental effort on the part of the user and deliver the more desirable continuously uniform dosages of mild yet effective medications, but, such devices are not entirely satisfactory since they exhibit the failings of being cumbersome to use, being lacking in portability, and requiring external electrical or gas means to activate them; furthermore, much of the inhalant material is lost and wasted to the surrounding atmosphere thus rendering many of the devices highly inefficient and unacceptable for prescribed dosages of inhalant.
It is therefore an object of this invention to provide an inhalator-breathing apparatus which the user can place inside the mouth that will function to mix ambient air with other gases or gas-like material suspensions during the physiological process of inhaling and to direct this inhalant mixture through the mouth to the lungs without subjecting the mouth to the drying or deleterious effects of an inhalant mixture.
It is another object of this invention while accomplishing the above object, to transmit into the air stream a measureable amount of gas or gas-like material suspension thereby providing for predictable dosages of the inhalant.
It is another object of this invention, while accomplishing the above objects, to convey as required the approximate flow of air into or out of the mouth as would be expected during normal nasal respiration.
It is another object of this invention, while accomplishing the above objects, to minimize the flow of expiring air into or through the contained source of gas or gas-like material suspension, thereby preserving the efficiency of this inhalant source and minimizing the loss of the gas-like material suspension during the process of exhaling.
It is still another object of this invention to accomplish the above objects without requiring special mental effort or repetitive physical action on the part of the user other than such as is irreducibly needed to satisfy immediate respiratory needs.
It is yet another object of this invention to accomplish the above objects with an apparatus which is singularly compact and portable.